Reddit Reddit reviews Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity

We found 13 Reddit comments about Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Science & Math
Books
Mathematics
Probability & Statistics
Applied Mathematics
Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity
W W Norton Company
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13 Reddit comments about Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity:

u/cannonballism · 5 pointsr/math
u/NotherDayAnotherDoug · 4 pointsr/wholesomememes

What I love about David Foster Wallace is how profound his writing is across all topics. Whether he's writing about tennis, or exploring deep mathematical + philosophical concepts, it's always incredibly insightful. If anyone reading this enjoys the above quote and wants to read more DFW, but doesn't wish to attempt the intimidating tome that is Infinite Jest, I recommend wetting one's feet with his magazine article Consider the Lobster (footnotes on page 8, they're important).

u/benEggers · 3 pointsr/mathematics

My pleasure :\^) It's hard to say what a local community college would have, since courses seem to vary a lot from school to school. The best thing you could find would probably be a class on something like "Set Theory" or "Mathematical Thinking" (those usually tend to touch on subjects like this without being pathologically rigorous), but a course in Discrete Math could do the trick, since you often talk about counting which leads naturally to countable vs uncountable sets. If you really want to learn the hardcore math, a course in Real Analysis is what you want. And if you don't know where to begin or are too busy, I can't recommend this book enough: http://www.amazon.com/Everything-More-Compact-History-Infinity/dp/0393339289. It's DFW so you know it's good ;)

I'm actually an undergrad studying Computer Science and Math but yes, I plan to end up a teacher after some other sort of career. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions.

u/PrurientLuxurient · 2 pointsr/philosophy

I'd just throw in that the late David Foster Wallace has a fun little book about this stuff. I'd recommend it as an accessible introduction; I am a complete layman when it comes to advanced mathematics and I found it to be an enjoyable read. I'm sure it isn't quite as comprehensive as what you'd get in a pure math course, but it might be useful nevertheless.

Edit: I should add that it is written in DFW's characteristic style--full of digressions, self-consciously and ironically pedantic footnotes, etc.--which plenty of people find unbelievably annoying. Be forewarned, then, that if you've never read anything by him, you may find the style irritating.

u/nulledit · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

I have to disagree a bit with your second pick, Everything and More by David Foster Wallace. His somewhat chaotic writing style [footnote footnote footnote] is more suited to essays and fiction than describing mathematical ideas. Clear and concise he is not.

That said, it is an interesting read. I just don't see it as a great introduction to someone who has had trouble with math in the past. It can be confusing.

u/Secret_Identity_ · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

It depends on what kind of math you want to learn. If you want to get up to speed on your basic math, khan academy is the way to go. However, I think that is probably a waste of your time. The math that you will see in high school and the first year or too of college has very little to do with what a mathematician might consider 'real math.' Frankly I found it boring as hell and I majored in math undergrad and grad.

If I were you, I would start with something interesting and if you end up really liking math, go back and pick up algebra and calculus. So check out the two books below:

This book will walk you through really high level stuff in an easy to understand way. As a grad student I would hang out in this class because it was rather fun.

This book is a history of math/pop math book. As an undergrad it put the field into perspective. Lots and lots of really useful information for anyone, especially someone who is interested in being well learned.

u/dagbrown · 1 pointr/ContagiousLaughter

I invite you to read a couple of books, both of which I really enjoyed.

One, Two, Three...Infinity by George Gamow (that link is almost certainly an act of piracy, but I doubt the author would mind because he dedicated his life to spreading knowledge), and

Everything and More by David Foster Wallace. That's a publication which is so recent that if you want to read it, you'll have to cough up money. Go ahead and do it: it's so interesting that it's worth the eight bucks for the e-book easily. Don't worry, it's not an affiliate link, I stand to gain nothing from your purchase.

Both of those books talk about the mind-blowing idea that there are multiplie levels of infinity, with some infinities being much bigger than other infinities. The state of the art in thinking about infinities is so brain-hurting that David Foster Wallace's book was published 40 years after George Gamow's book, and includes a relatively small number of concepts that weren't in the older book (which isn't to say that they're insignificant--they're ideas about infinity so by necessity they're huge). One of the things I liked about David Foster Wallace's book is that it actually has a formula for quantifying how much bigger a higher-level infinity is than a lower-level infinity. Nobody in Gamow's day had come up with anything like that yet, they were just waving their arms talking about "huge" and "huger".

u/CentralNervousPiston · 1 pointr/philosophy

I am a Strange Loop is about the theorem

Another book I recommend is David Foster-Wallace's Everything and More. It's a creative book all about infinity, which is a very important philosophical concept and relates to mind and machines, and even God. Infinity exists within all integers and within all points in space. Another thing the human mind can't empirically experience but yet bears axiomatic, essential reality. How does the big bang give rise to such ordered structure? Is math invented or discovered? Well, if math doesn't change across time and culture, then it has essential existence in reality itself, and thus is discovered, and is not a construct of the human mind. Again, how does logic come out of the big bang? How does such order and beauty emerge in a system of pure flux and chaos? In my view, logic itself presupposes the existence of God. A metaphysical analysis of reality seems to require that base reality is mind, and our ability to perceive and understand the world requires that base reality be the omniscient, omnipresent mind of God.

Anyway these books are both accessible. Maybe at some point you'd want to dive into Godel himself. It's best to listen to talks or read books about deep philosophical concepts first. Jay Dyer does a great job on that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-L9EOTsb1c&t=11s

u/Oldkingcole225 · 1 pointr/technicallythetruth

This is the basis of calculus. An infinitesimal (1/Infinity) can both = 0 and > 0. When calculus was first presented to the math community, they saw this and called it a bunch of liberal hippie bullshit. It took ~100-150 years for calculus to be fully formalized and accepted within the math community, but it was immediately accepted in the engineering community because it worked. If you’re interested, I highly recommend Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace

u/threepoint14ApplePi · 1 pointr/332e313431353932

Of note, DFW also wrote this.

u/racketship · 1 pointr/davidfosterwallace

I would be interested in Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity

Is that a possibility?

u/RuttyRut · 1 pointr/INTP

It sounds like you would enjoy Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity, also by DFW. Fascinating read, non-fiction, both somewhat technical and easily readable.

"The task Wallace has set himself is enormously challenging: without radically compromising the complexity of the philosophy, metaphysics, or mathematics that underlies the evolving concept of infinity, present the material to a lay audience in a manner that is entertaining."

https://www.amazon.com/Everything-More-Compact-History-Infinity/dp/0393339289

u/noahpoah · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

If you liked Consider the Lobster, then you will also very probably like A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Both Flesh and Not.

Edited to add that Everything and More is also very good, though it's not a collection of essays.